7 Tips For Building A High Performing Sales Team

Regardless of the size of your sales team - 1 to 50 reps, all companies struggle with providing new reps the resources to succeed. To ensure your team is set up for success, it’s essential to provide sales teams with processes they can follow which are clear and well-documented.

To ensure you are getting the most from your sales team, it starts from day one of onboarding and you will need to ensure you have built out a sales program and have set up sales training for a small business. 

If you prefer to train your own employees, on the other hand, here are 7 tips for creating a dynamic, high-performing sales team: 

1.    Get the latest training materials

Make sure that your training manuals and scripts are as up-to-date as they need to be, and that they reflect any changes to technology or methodology. Having all of your techniques and processes for sales documented clearly and made readily accessible, you can give your sales team the tools they need to drive sales. Leverage a mixture of documents, video, live training, and diagrams to adhere to various learning styles.

2.    Make good use of your sales training platforms

With an enriching and fully integrated sales training platform, your sales team can work to become the best at what they do; employing all the right techniques, learning as they go, and understanding every product or service fully. We recommend Trainual or Notion to build out SOPs and training processes.

3.    Use sales playbooks to enable sales reps

Every rep will encounter at least one challenging scenario during their time as a member of the sales team, but by giving them a sales playbook to refer to, they can follow best practices, and approach a variety of situations in a professional way. Sales playbooks contain guidance for pitching your service or product and become experts on how to sell against your competition, go over pricing, and more.

4.    Make time for ongoing role play

To help reinforce the information contained within company training manuals, sales playbooks and training platforms, role play can be implemented. While it might not be something every employee enjoys doing, it can be incredibly effective for helping them respond appropriately to certain scenarios, overcome objections, and close sales. Mock sales calls are also the best way for reps to form new habits, as they apply their skills in an environment in which the stakes are low. 

5.    Make shadowing a priority

While any time spent reading a training manual or shadowing an experienced representative is time in which sales aren’t being closed, it can still prove invaluable for helping new employees learn the ropes, and develop the right habits. Often the greatest source of experience in the real world of sales for new hires, experienced reps can show what is expected of them, what they can expect from the role, and how best to tackle it.

6.    Provide regular opportunities for feedback and coaching

Employees can benefit from both coaching and feedback (provided its constructive, of course), and offering it on a regular basis can help them feel more like one of the team, and give them the chance to enhance their skills and mindset.

Coaching helps sales reps solve problems, set goals and plan for achieving them, while feedback is more about the employee listening to how their performance is perceived by managers, and then taking steps to move forward appropriately.

7.    Take part in conferences and seminars

Arranging for your sales team to participate in webinars and seminars that are specific to the industry can help them learn and gain confidence in their role. These can be of value even for experienced members of the sales team, but are particularly beneficial for those who may need to update their professional development needs.

With the right integrated platforms, and by focusing on how best to train sales teams for the best results, you can help them become higher performing individuals. With elevated sales pitches, deals closing left, right, and center, and customers that don’t just buy once from you, but multiple times, the right sales training can strengthen your brand and boost profits.